Contradictory Crowns of Daisies
by Crimson White
Summary: Caspian has much to learn. Lucy is eager to share. But what does the future King of Narnia have to learn from a tiny ten year old with bare feet and fondness of daisy chains?


Characters are not mine.

One last post before the festivities begin! Happy holidays all. Hope you enjoy.

Crimson.

Additional notes 6/1/09 - This story has been nominated in the Best Short Story category over at the Narnia FanFiction Revolution 2008 awards, head over there to check out other nominated stories and authors and cast your vote to decide the best! visit http:// narniafanfiction (.) com

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"_To arms Narnia_

_To arms, to arms._

_What foe can endure_

_Our pride so pure?"_

Caspian paused on his way through the forest to the bathing stream. His ears pricked at the unfamiliar lilting beats of a different era.

"_Right upper hand, backwards swing._

_Forward charge in the name of the King._

_Left upper cut, parry and strike._

_Down falls our foe with more of the like."_

He ducked around a low tree branch and paused at the edge of a small clearing.

Inside, he spied Little Queen Lucy dancing at the base of an ancient birch tree. Her tiny frame was dwarfed by the tree's magnificent arms.

"_To Arms Narnia_

_To arms, to arms._

_In Aslan's name_

_Our enemies to shame."_

It was a particularly funny dance. A lot of hopping and jumping seemed to be a requirement. It looked rather like the movements were not made for human feet and the little girl had just adapted best she could.

Caspian stepped forward, smiling at Lucy's innocent blissfulness, but consciously aware that she was alone and unguarded. He would have to escort her back to the How. The woods were a dangerous place, especially for little girls. How on earth she managed to sneak away in the first place, he did not know. He cleared his throat softly, so as not to startle her.

Lucy spun around, her feet firmly planted and her smile gone. Her hand flew to her dagger and suddenly she did not seem like such a small child, rather she seemed as ancient and steadfast as the tree which towered above her.

But then she recognised him and he saw a smile blossoming on her lips. Her fingers fluttered away from the silver dagger and Caspian thought he'd more than likely imagined the threatening stance all together.

She did not cringe at being found dancing alone as many others would; Lucy had never been very self conscious. Rather, she dashed forward and grasped Caspian's fingers tightly.

"Good Afternoon, Prince Caspian," she said brightly, tugging him towards the tree. "Would you like to dance with me? Oh say you will, oh do!"

Caspian held back a chuckle at her eagerness. She was all grasping hands and twinkling eyes and flushed cheeks. She really was very endearing.

"But I do not know the steps!" he said.

Lucy shrugged. "That's alright, it makes it more fun that way! Besides, I suppose I look a little silly as well. It's a _faun_ dance after all and I can't jump quite as high as they."

Caspian shook his head no; he was not one for childish games. "I am afraid I am rather uncoordinated, Queen Lucy. Teaching me a dance made not for human feet would only make me more ungainly, I fear."

Lucy pondered this with a small pout. "No matter" she decided. "Will you sit with me instead?" She pulled him to the tree without hearing his answer. "Peter is busy drawing battle plans and Edmund is busy arguing with him and Susan is busy trying to help Edmund not to lose his temper with Peter."

It was such a true statement and summation of her siblings antics that Caspian hid a smile. "Oh! Shouldn't you be with them?"

"They wouldn't let me join in even if I were." Lucy sounded disgruntled. It was an unusual emotion in the happy girl.

"Why ever not?" he asked her.

"I'm too young." She smiled but it was a queer smile, strained, sarcastic even.

Still smiling absently, Lucy sat at the base of the birch tree and began to pluck at the Narnian Daisies which grew around her. Carefully she began to weave them into a complex pattern, her tongue stuck through her teeth. She was the picture of childish concentration.

"What are you making?" he asked, sitting by her side. Little girls could not be left alone in the forest, after all.

"What are _we_ making," she corrected him, and placed a handful of flowers into his lap. "And you are very sweet to want to stay and watch over me, very chivalrous."

Was she always so perceptive? "What are _we_ making?" He indulged her, choosing to ignore her other comment.

"A daisy crown."

He eyed the crushed flowers. "I am a little afraid to ask who the crown is for."

Lucy giggled. "For you silly, every Narnian King has to wear the daisies. Peter's done it, so has Edmund."

"I would have liked to see that," he laughed.

"Would you laugh at them if you understood the love and adoration that such an action requires in order to let go of your pride? Pride is often the cause of many difficulties that you will face as King. You must learn to let go of your pride and be humbled,"Lucy replied mildly.

Caspian closed his mouth, well put in his place and shook his head no. Those were startling adult words out of a childish mouth.

Laughing, Lucy extended her feet before her. Caspian noted her feet were bare as she wriggled her toes in the sunlight happily. Her dress hitched further to her knees with the movement. He would have never noticed it had she been wearing her normal soft leather boots. But on her right leg, on the outer calf, was a patch of skin which was an angry red colour. It looked as though it was a recent burn, or graze, or bruise. He leaned forward in alarm, crouching at her side and reaching out a hand to touch her leg hesitantly.

"Lucy! Whatever happened to your leg? Is it very painful? Do I need to fetch a healer?" he asked anxiously. Peter was sure to never forgive him if he brought his little sister back to the How hurt.

Lucy looked up from her daisy crown and at her legs with surprise. She followed his gaze to the mark and her surprise turned into recognition.

"Oh! Oh no, no, a healer will not be necessary. It pains me no longer."

"But whatever happened? Are you _sure_ it doesn't pain you?" He began to check her over subtly for any other hurts.

She smiled at his questions. "I am _quite_ sure it does not pain me and you are _quite_ sweet to be so anxious.'

"But when did it happen?" Caspian persisted.

Her eyes twinkled. "Oh, approximately thirteen hundred years ago...give or take a few years."

"Thirteen –" Caspian spluttered, his eyes wide.

"umhmm, " Lucy's tongue was stuck back between her teeth as she navigated a particular tricky flower stem into her pattern. "I got that on my first campaign, I was seventeen, I think." She squinted up at him, thinking hard and then added. "Against a really quite annoying witch by the name of Quylen." She looked back to the ground and searched for another flower. "I believe there's a song about it, would you like to hear it?"

She proceeded without needing to see his nod, her sweet voice ringing around the clearing once again.

"_She danced across the battle field,_

_The smallest one with sword and shield._

_Tiniest queen, of faith and heart,_

_She tore those enemy lines apart._

_Against our Queen, the witch had no chance,_

_This tiny girl in a tunic and pants._

_The spirit of battle, the strength of her men,_

_The end of the witch, the loathsome Quylen."_

Lucy stopped and shrugged. "Or something of the like. Tumnus -" she tilted her head to him, "do you remember me telling you about my friend, Tumnus?" He nodded again. "Yes well, he made it up. I do think he was rather proud of me," she confided shyly.

_Never mind Tumnus!_

"_You_ rode to battle?" he asked her, astounded.

She frowned at a flower and pulled it out of her pattern, too occupied to be offended by his incredulous tone. "Oh yes, mostly with the archers, you know. But I was also trained with a sword." She held out the flower to him with frustrated eyes. "Here can you pull this through there?"

He did so and she smiled, looking terribly much like a nine year old should, not counting the tales of battle and pain which were forthcoming from her small lips. He reminded himself that her life timeline did not work in the normal fashion.

"And your wound?" he prompted her, handing back the crown.

Lucy inspected his work. "Oh, she burned me with some sort of spell as I rode across the field to engage her. It's been that way ever since. I learned the most important lesson in fighting hand to hand combat that day. _I am not invincible_. That's one I'm not going to forget too easily." She made a face, as if one was ripping of a particularly old bandage that had moulded itself into the wound. "Ohh it hurt something fierce."

"And your brothers let you fight?" Caspian was having a hard time grasping the fact.

Lucy laughed lightly. "My brothers had no choice. I followed them anyway and got into all sorts of scrapes. So they thought it best if I was trained well and under their watchful eyes, rather than running behind them unprotected. I was rather foolish and made many mistakes when I was young. I always blundered along, thinking of my own worries first, not of worries I would create for others when I followed them."

She paused with her daisies and shifted her hair behind her ear. He wouldn't have noticed it had the gesture not been so meticulously predetermined. But his gaze was drawn to her neck.

There, just under her ear, was a small jagged scar. He stared at the mark with horror. Who dared to mark such innocent skin?

Lucy let her fingers linger over the scar. "Take that particular mark, for example. In one of the earlier years of our reign, Peter and Edmund decided to build a fleet of ships and sail for Galma to liberate them from the remaining white witch's forces." Lucy grinned up at him impishly. "Well I couldn't let them go _alone_, could I? One of them was _sure_ to be hurt and they would _obviously _need my cordial." She sighed and rubbed her ears. "I don't think Peter has ever shouted so loudly at me as he did the day they found me hidden in the ships storage."

Lucy took a deep breath. "Long story short, I ended up getting myself kidnapped by pirates and held at axe point. Somehow, and to this day I'm not sure how he did it, Peter managed to get himself between me and the axe. I believe he's got a rather nasty scar on his arm from it. I rather do feel a little responsible."

"Yes, I've seen it," Caspian told her hoarsely. His voice, it seemed, had left him.

"It's quite gruesome isn't it?" she agreed, but then her eyes lit up. "I've got one better though."

Before Caspian could protest, she was rolling up the long sleeve of her lovely silk dress. She poked her elbow into his face.

Just above the joint was a horribly puckered patch of white skin. He felt his stomach roll. To see marks on another man around his age was one thing. To see marks such as this on a tiny little girl made him weak in the stomach.

"Another mistake?"

"No, pride is not always a bad thing and this one I am proud of. I rode onto that battle field knowing full well that I may be hurt, but not caring because my friends were in need of aid. I learned that to lead a country requires sacrifice, sometimes at a very personal level."

Her eyes glowed with the same passion which he saw reflected in every Narnian soldier he fought with on a daily basis.

Lucy gazed at him steadily. "Took an arrow on the field of Varden, in Archenland. They were having a problem with several gangs of terrorists who had banded together to create an army. Peter was away on state visits. So Edmund led the charge from the air with his griffin squad and I led the ground charge." She let the sleeve drop, hiding the mark. "It went straight through. They had to snip the ends of and pull through the shaft." She grinned cheerfully. "I fainted!"

Before he could form a coherent thought, Lucy held up her finished crown proudly.

"There! All done!" She eyed him slyly. "Will you wear it?"

And as suddenly as she had appeared, the soldier disappeared and the child returned. Caspian felt his masculinity crumble in the face of her childish pout. He recalled her words about letting go of his pride and nodded. She grinned and placed the flowers in his hair, patting his cheek fondly.

"It's easier than you think, isn't it? Let go of yourself and allow each of your experiences to teach you something new." She laughed at his expression and darted away, her bare feet dancing through the soft grass.

She really was quite the contradiction. Full of wise words and memories of a lifetime of servitude to her country, yet her appearance and nature were so very childlike that it made talking to her rather disconcerting. Caspian stared at her in amazement as Lucy began to hum. She held her arms out and twirled to the strange beats, her golden curls streaming behind her.

She appeared to be a child. She _was_ a child. But, then again, she hadn't always been.

He shook his head. If _he_ was confused by her alternately childish characteristics and womanly memories, then he wondered just how confused _she_ was.

Lucy laughed, throwing her head back to stare at the sky as she twirled. She paused and stopped, holding out her hands to him with a beautiful, beckoning smile.

And he saw her as she would be. As she had been.

He understood that no matter how old she grew, Lucy would still dance bare footed through the grass.

He understood that no matter how many battles she fought in, Lucy would still possess a certain childlike quality of innocence.

He understood that no matter how gentle she appeared, Valiance was not merely a little girl's faith.

She giggled at his amazed expression and beckoned him with her hands eagerly.

He understood, too, that he was not the first prince to be charmed and captivated by her exuberant and passionate nature.

Caspian took the Queen's miniature fingers and let himself jump like a faun and step like a dwarf.

If he stopped once and shook his head at his own exuberance, we'll forgive him, just this once, because Caspian was still learning that the biggest thing that got in the way of self growth, was ones self.

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First of all this came about as a request and plot bunny from Robin and Marian 4ever. I don't know if it's anything like you expected!

Lucy is quite the enigma. I see her as a very free spirit and as an adult I imagine she'd be very childlike. I tried to get across the contradiction that she presents as a woman in child's body but it is very difficult and I struggled quite a bit. I debated on whether or not to post this yet, but I'm quite stuck and I don't have a beta, i prefer to post and get a few opinions and then i may rewrite or add ideas! So let me know what you think!


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